About the Associate Dean: David M. Gaba, M.D.
David M. Gaba, M.D. is Associate Dean for Immersive and Simulation-based Learning and Director of the Center for Immersive and Simulation based Learning (CISL) at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine (with tenure) at Stanford and Director of the Patient Simulation Center of Innovation at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System where he is also a Staff Anesthesiologist.
Over the last 29 years Dr. Gaba's laboratory has worked extensively on human performance and patient safety issues. His laboratory is a pioneer in applying organizational safety theory to health care. The laboratory is also the inventor of the modern full-body patient simulator and is responsible for introducing Crew Resource Management training from aviation to healthcare, first in anesthesia and then to many other healthcare domains. He has been the principal investigator on grants from a wide variety of funders. Dr. Gaba is an author on more than 120 original articles, commentaries, and editorials in a wide diversity of peer-reviewed journals. He is the author more than 25 book chapters, and the well-known book Crisis Management in Anesthesiology (2nd Edition will be released in Fall 2014!). After serving on the editorial boards of several academic and medical journals, Dr. Gaba is the founding and current Editor-in-Chief of the indexed peer-reviewed journall Simulation in Healthcare (now in Volume 9!), the only indexed peer-reviewed journal on simulation, published by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH).
Dr. Gaba is long-time member of the Executive Committee of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and a founding member of the Research Committee of the National Patient Safety. He is a founding Board member of both the SSH and Advanced Initiatives in Medical Simulation (AIMS). Dr. Gaba was awarded the 2003 David M. Worthen Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs; the 2007 Teaching Achievement Recognition Award from the International Anesthesia Research Society; Kaiser Award for Innovative and Outstanding Contributions to Medical Education, Stanford University School of Medicine, May, 2010; The Society for Technology in Anesthesia, J.S. Gravenstein Award for Lifetime Achievement, January, 2011, and the 2011 (inaugural) Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health Award for Excellence in Clinical Simulation Training, Education and Research.
In his spare time he rides a short wheelbase recumbent road bicycle, reads voraciously, avidly follows developments in physics and space sciences, and occasionally plays golf and bridge. He used to do many other interesting things including epee fencing, flying, scuba diving, rock climbing, skiing, glass blowing but is currently (sadly) retired from all of those activities.
